Seven Rising Designers To Watch At New York Fashion Week

As fashion week returns to New York – kicking off a month’s worth of autumn/winter 2018 collection shows – here are seven names to have on your radar.

Hellessy

Designer Sylvie Millstein’s roots in France and Japan, yet her business and life are based in the New York neighborhood of Soho – thus her loyalty to the city. Known for her languid shapes and playful proportions, the 2016 International Woolmark Prize finalist – whose clothes have adorned the likes of Gwyneth Paltrow, Emma Watson, Emily Ratajkowski and Beyoncé – is playing with maximalism this season, inspired by the rococo style of interior designer Tony Duquette. “I was feeling rich, opulent colours and textures for a woman who likes to make an entrance,” she tells Vogue. “I also wanted to inject some optimism and eclecticism into her fall wardrobe.”

Juicy Couture

While Juicy Couture isn’t new, per se – the brand rose to fame dressing the likes of Lindsay Lohan and Paris Hilton in baby pink velour tracksuits during the early-aughts and gained newfound love via a Vetements collaboration in 2016 – this is its first-ever runway show. “Juicy Couture is synonymous with the tracksuit, an association that is a great source of pride for us,” says creative director Jamie Mizrahi. “That said, as a global brand it is important that consumers know we offer so much more.” This is Mizrahi’s second season at the helm, the perfect time to push the brand into the spotlight and display its full range of offerings. She says that while fans will recognise the brand’s irreverent, fun and feminine ethos, it’ll be spun into new shapes and silhouettes.

John Elliott

Known for elevating sweatpants from gym attire to street style fodder, Los Angeles-based designer John Elliott has created an entire lifestyle built around relaxed, low-key dressing. His ability to make casualwear look so effortless has been the hallmark of his brand, which, this season, is expanding to womenswear. It promises everything that has made him a success in the menswear market – slouchy hoodies, slim sweats, utilitarian outerwear and cool-kid T-shirts – reimagined through a feminine lens.

Alice McCall

Boho dresses, lacy lingerie tops and 1970s-style denim rompers are just some of the Australian designer’s calling cards, a mix of breezy femininity and mid-century retro appeal. And while McCall launched her label in 2004, this season she’s showing in New York for the first time. “New York is the centre of the US fashion scene and represents a gateway to the wider market,” she explains. McCall observed a growing appetite for her designs after holding an event in Los Angeles last year, and moving her show to US soil seemed like a no-brainer. This season she says to keep an eye out for her signature vintage prints and embroideries which will be worked into modern, elegant silhouettes.

Moon Choi

With streetwear on the rise, the fact that a talent like Moon Choi is doubling down on tailoring is a bold move. However the Parsons graduate isn’t serving up stuffy suiting but proportionally playful takes on the classic blazer-trouser combo. Part architectural, part avant-garde, her work “blurs the boundary between feminine and masculine, as it gently shifts the notions of gender and identity,” she says. “It’s the expressive result of how I believe clothing can inﬂuence one’s identity and behaviour.” This results in strange yet captivating reinterpretations of classic garments.

Lou Dallas

Like Eckhaus Latta’s Mike Eckhaus and Zoe Latta, Raffaella Hanley studied fine arts at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) before making the leap into fashion, and now designs the line Lou Dallas. Her garments are made mostly from deadstock or recycled textiles, which are then imparted with handmade details like loomed knitting and embroidery. Hanley’s upcycled approach, artsy background and the spring/summer 2018 collection’s woodland nymph theme don’t yield twee or romantic designs. In fact Hanley’s work veers toward the funky-cool and aggressively lurid. Still, there’s hints of an odd and alluring beauty, like a hipster Miss Havisham remaking yesterday’s trash as today’s oddball treasures. This season, Hanley cited an invented story as her inspiration, concerning a “sometimes riotous, sometimes sinister” party at a “mysterious castle” and the “uneasy spirits” beneath it.

LRS

Raul Solis, the Mexican-born designer of LRS Studio, shies away from typical forms of pretty in favour of the wild abandon of club kids and nightlife for inspiration. The designer is an alumnus of Proenza Schouler and that cool-girl aura is all over his clothing. His spring/summer 2018 collection was part arts-and-crafts, part architectural mayhem, all coming undone at the seams in the best of possible ways. His next collection will continue the boundary-pushing vitality, which has become the underlying signature to his work.

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